How Mobile Barcodes and NFC can play together

Elliott Lemenager

Friday, Jan 27, 2012 at 11:20 AM

New Data from Nellymoser indicates that well over 90% of the top 100 magazines in the US have featured at least one mobile barcode since May 2011; as recently as November 2010, just 9% had. With the proliferation of mobile barcodes in print and the availability of NFC there are new possibilities to use 2d barcodes in print to connect advertising to in store experiences.

Instead of scanning a 2dbarcode to watch a movie or gain more information in a print advertisement what if the 2dbarcode delivered a coupon or linked to a customer loyalty application for the product advertised. This discount would be logged into your mobile app by scanning the mobile barcode allowing the consumer to easily carry the loyalty points or coupon with them to their local retailer.

Once the consumer arrives at the retailer they can pick up the item that they scanned the print advertisement and head to the register. At the register NFC technology can be used so the user can easily swipe their phone to redeem the coupon that they scanned in the print advertisement earlier.

Here’s a quick example on how NFC can be used at the point of sale that the Swedish retail chain ICA has recently implemented. This will give you an idea how quick and user friendly NFC can be for redeeming coupons or customer loyalty points from mobile barcodes scanned in print advertising.